Charles Murray`s Jewish Genius

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"Since its first issue in
1945,
Commentary has published hundreds of articles
about Jews and Judaism. … But there is a lacuna, and not
one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. Commentary
has never published a systematic discussion of one of
the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant
overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers,
in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine,
finance, entrepreneurship, and the media."

The irony is that, beyond the
specific accomplishments of thinkers such as Albert
Einstein and
Milton Friedman, one of the great general Jewish
contributions to the world over the last two centuries
has been their attitude of relentless critical inquiry.

Well, to be precise, let`s strike"nothing" from that principle and substitute
"only one thing." And that lone topic too sacred for
public discussion is:
Jewish influence itself—especially when the
investigation is carried out by non-Jews.

Jewish success in the public sphere is one of those
phenomena that is widely denounced as a "stereotype".But it is as well documented as anything in the
social sciences.

"…during the last three
decades, Jews have made up 50% of the top two hundred
intellectuals, … 20 percent of professors at the
leading universities, … 26% of the reporters, editors,
and executives of the major print and broadcast media,
59 percent of the
directors, writers, and producers of the fifty
top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58
percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or
more
primetime television series." [pp 26-27]

One unfortunate example: over the
last half decade, the world`s
most famous living author hasn`t been able to get
his two most recent books published in America. Why not?
Because they comprise an even-handed two-volume history
of the world-changing role of Jews in
his country`s history. And virtually nobody in the
Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave has
complained about this astonishing situation, or even
mentioned it in print. (To find out who this writer is
and to read the first excerpts in English translation to
be posted on the Web, click
here.)

So, how have Jews achieved so much
sway over society? If the members of every group were
equal on average, as the dogma of political
correctness insists, then there would be something
deeply suspicious about these Jewish attainments.

"A full
answer must call on many characteristics of Jewish
culture, but intelligence has to be at the center of the
answer. Jews have been found to have an
unusually high mean intelligence as measured by IQ
tests since the first Jewish samples were tested. (The
widely repeated story that Jewish immigrants to this
country in the early 20th century tested low on IQ is a
canard.) … But it is currently accepted that the
mean is somewhere in the range of 107 to 115, with 110
being a plausible compromise."

Without understanding the impact of
Jewish intellectuals upon the last century, which UC
Berkeley historian
Yuri Slezkine calls with minimalhyperbole The Jewish Century,

you
can`t understand modern history. And a necessary,
although not sufficient, condition for
Jewish intellectualism is high Jewish intelligence.

And yet, pointing out the palpable
about Jewish influence and intelligence is rarely done,
at least in public.

"I have
personal experience with the reluctance of Jews to talk
about Jewish accomplishment—my co-author, the late
Richard Herrnstein, gently resisted the paragraphs
on Jewish IQ that I insisted on putting in The Bell Curve(1994)."

"A team
of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed
that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among
Jews of central or northern European origin, or
Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for
enhanced intellectual ability. The selective force was
the restriction of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe to
occupations that required more than usual mental
agility… Ashkenazic diseases like Tay-Sachs, they say,
are a side effect of genes that promote intelligence."[Researchers
Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in
Ashkenazic Genes,
June 2, 2005]

The Cochran-Harpending-Hardy
theory—which was also recently evaluated by another
heavyweight, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker,
in
The New Republic focuses on the evolutionary
pressures on just one group of Jews and one time period:
Yiddish-speaking Jews of Northern and Eastern Europe
(the ancestors of most American Jews) over the last
millennium. In
Israel, the descendents of the Ashkenazim have
substantially higher average IQs than other Jews.

Murray, while admiring of the CHH
thesis, wants to complement it. He suggests that
"elevated Jewish intelligence was (a) not confined to
Ashkenazim and (b) antedates the Middle Ages."

Yet, as
Cochran points out in response to Murray on the
Gene Expression blog: "Nor is there the slightest
sign that that Jews were sharper than average in
Classical times: not one single paragraph in preserved
classical literature suggests that anyone had that
impression."

Still, the ancient Greeks were so
brilliant that everybody else might have looked dim to
contemporaries by comparison. So pointing out back then
who was in second place, smartswise, might have seemed
as pointless as debating over who was the best actress
other than
Helen Mirren at playing a
Queen named
Elizabeth last year.

There`s an African proverb that
when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. I,
personally, can`t resolve the Murray-Cochran debate.

Instead, let me note that it`s
admirable that Jewish-owned magazines like Commentary
and The New Republic are opening themselves up to
more honest discussions of this crucial topic.

Clearly, some Jews put a lot of
energy into the traditional obsession of worrying.
"Is it good for the Jews?" Being a big fan of
enlightened self-interest, I have no objection to that.
What I object to is unenlightened self-interest—which
the current taboo on discussing human diversity
exacerbates.

Without far more of this kind of
frankness, Jewish pundits and publications will continue
to slip into their own self-defeating Isms, such as:

Be-Like-Meism: For example, the
common suggestion by Jewish commentators that
current illegal immigrants merely have to act like
the
Jewish immigrants of
1906 and everything will turn out fine. Well,
swell …

Pseudo-Ethnic Humilityism: Few
Jews
actually believe that Mexicans are just like
Jews. They think Jews are smarter (which they are,
by about
20 IQ points on average). But they don`t want
anybody else to notice that Jews are smarter, so
they advocate immigration policies that depend for
their success upon Mexicans being just as smart as
Jews. The fact that this immigration policy is
obviously bad for America is deemed less important
than keeping up the charade that nobody must mention
in public that Jews are smarter than everybody else
on the whole.